Here's a little question suitable for this mostly-British board. The "Thunder Child" in Wells' novel was an imaginary ship, okay. But I recently managed to get my hands on J.J. Colledge's book "Ships of the Royal Navy" (2003; published by both Greenhill Books in London and Stackpole Books in Mechanicsburg, PA---my home state---in the US), which lists EVERY British naval vessel from the Fifteenth Century to the time of publicaton. Your navy's had a lot of ships with "thunder" in their names, but apparently there has NEVER been a ship of ANY type called the "Thunder Child".

Just out of curiosity, why do you think this is so? After Wells' novel became popular, why did the Royal Navy never name a vessel after the bravest ship that never existed? After all, the US Navy named its first nuclear sub the "Nautilus" after Captain Nemo's sub in "20,000 Leagues Under the Sea", and Jules Verne wasn't even an American. And don't give the explanation that "it's an imaginary ship", because everything in mythology is imaginary, too, and your navy's put out TONS of ships named after characters and creatures from Classical mythology.

With all the interest in "The War of the Worlds" prevalent now, maybe you could send a petition to the government, asking that if/when your impoverished military scrapes together enough funds to build a major warship (such as a full-fledged fleet carrier or a missile-armed surface vessel of at least cruiser-size), that they name it "Thunder Child" after one of the most famous fictional British warships in literature. Don't expect us to bail you out like we did Verne's France; we have our own system in place for naming warships, and Verne was just lucky enough that we named submarines after marine animals.

I have no idea. Probably because most of the time, the kinds of people responsible for naming warships have been senior civil servants brought up on the classics and who wouldn't soil their hands touching a science-fiction novel, no matter how exalted. And much of the time, great names are revived for major vessels. So, for example, HMS Vanguard, a trident submarine, is not simply named Vanguard becuase of the frontline connotations of the name, but also because there have been several Vanguards since a ship of that name sailed against the Armada in 1588. Warship names, for the Royal Navy, have a life of their own, with their own history and even their own coat of arms. It's a bit like the hallowed names of army regiments.

A combination of the weight of history, then, plus a predilection for also using the names of mythological figures, counties, towns, monarchs, military figures, great victories and aristocrats, to an extent circumscribes what names are available.

The US has its own system, which in some ways is (or has been) more formulaic than ours (so, for example, all blue seas battleships were named after states). Also, there isn't that burden of historical reference - some of the names used for our ships pre-date the founding of the US, so there's a long tradition to uphold. Americans, on the other hand, can experiment, and use innovative names. 'Nautilus' is a case in point, though it's not just a Vernian invention - a nautilus is a shelled cephalopod, and Fulton named his submarine 'Nautilus' decades before Verne.

Given that our navy has shrunk so much, though, and the available pool of ships is thus so small, the chances of anyone deciding to use the name of a fictional warship from a sci-fi novel instead of, say, a name that has a history going back 600 years are a million to one against.

Seriously, I didn't expect much from this thread. It was at least partially done with tongue firmly in cheek. I know a lot of Royal Navy ship names have a long past; one of those "Vanguards" came out late in World War II, as the last battleship to be built for the Royal Navy.

Just for the record, our naming system wasn't quite so firm in the beginning. We had a predreadnought battleship named "Kearsarge", after the Union warship that sank the Confederate raider "Alabama" off the coast of France. Now famous ship names of the past are reserved for aircraft carriers, and "Kearsarge" was also tagged onto one of the last Essex-Class carriers we built. Battle cruisers were going to be the same way, but our first few were converted to the original Lexington-Class carriers, and finally we named them after US possessions such as Guam and---in those days---Alaska and Hawaii. We built a pair of battle cruisers with 12" guns during WWII to counter the German pocket battleships, named Alaska and Guam, and stopped work on Hawaii when she was 84% complete.

In our navy, lessor famous military and other men get their names tagged onto all destroyer-types (destroyers, destroyer escorts, and the guided missile versions of each). All cruisers other than battle cruisers are named after cities, and all battleships after states. Aircraft carriers are named after REALLY famous men, great ships of the past, and battles. Subs are named after aquatic life and other watery names, though a few are also named after famous men like George Washington for some reason.

Who is online

Users browsing this forum: No registered users and 0 guests

You cannot post new topics in this forumYou cannot reply to topics in this forumYou cannot edit your posts in this forumYou cannot delete your posts in this forumYou cannot post attachments in this forum